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Test Types: 1. Achievement/Attainment Tests

The document discusses different types of language tests: 1. Achievement/attainment tests measure mastery of a syllabus, help evaluate teaching, and identify weaknesses. Progress tests similarly assess learning but also motivate students. 2. Diagnostic tests provide information on strengths and weaknesses to plan remedial programs. Placement tests determine language levels before a course. 3. Proficiency tests measure performance on specific tasks like university studies. Aptitude tests predict performance by measuring abilities like sound recognition and grammar learning.

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Waad Majid
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149 views17 pages

Test Types: 1. Achievement/Attainment Tests

The document discusses different types of language tests: 1. Achievement/attainment tests measure mastery of a syllabus, help evaluate teaching, and identify weaknesses. Progress tests similarly assess learning but also motivate students. 2. Diagnostic tests provide information on strengths and weaknesses to plan remedial programs. Placement tests determine language levels before a course. 3. Proficiency tests measure performance on specific tasks like university studies. Aptitude tests predict performance by measuring abilities like sound recognition and grammar learning.

Uploaded by

Waad Majid
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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TEST TYPES

1. Achievement/Attainment tests:
- are usually more formal/summative
- designed to show mastery of a particular
syllabus (e.g. end-of-year tests, school-
leaving exams, public tests) though
similar (re-syllabus) to progress tests.
- are rarely constructed by classroom teacher
for a particular class.
- are designed primarily to measure
individual progress rather than as a
means of motivating or reinforcing
language.
- help the teachers judge the success of their
teaching.
- help teachers identify the weaknesses of their
learners.
2. Progress Tests:
Most classroom tests take this form.
Examples are midterm exams, quizzes,
etc. These ….

- assess the progress students make in


mastering material taught in the
classroom.
- often given to motivate students.
- enable students to assess the degree
of success of teaching and learning
- help to identify areas of weakness & difficulty.
- can also be diagnostic to some degree.

3. Diagnostic Tests.

- can include Progress, Achievement and


Proficiency tests.
- provide learners with better
information about their strengths and
weaknesses.
- enable teachers to identify specific
weaknesses/difficulties so that an
appropriate remedial programme can be
planned.
- are primarily designed to assess
students' knowledge & skills in
particular areas before a course of
study is begun.

Diagnostic tests in pronunciation, for


example, might have the purpose of
determining which particular phonological
features of the English language are more
likely to pose problems and difficulties for a
group of learners.

4. Placement Tests ….
- place students in a specific language level
before they start a course.
- Measure general ability (may all
language skills) rather than specific
points of learning.
- Are used as a reference forward to future
learning.
- Results of Placement Tests are needed
quickly.

5. Proficiency Tests …
- measure students' achievements in
relation to a specific task which they are
later required to perform (e.g. follow a
university course in the English medium;
do a particular job).
- are used as a reference forward to
particular application of language
acquired: future performance rather than
past achievement.
- rarely take into account the syllabus that
students have followed.
- measure application of common standard
whether the syllabus is known or unknown.
SAMPLE TESTS
Cambridge English:
Proficiency (CPE)
Difficulty level: C2 / advanced

The Cambridge Proficiency Exam (CPE) is the


hardest of the Cambridge exams.
Who is it for?
Do this test if you really love English! If you
pass this test your English is good enough for
you to teach English to others. Your English
will be good enough to study at any British
university. Over 45,000 people in more than 80
countries take the CPE exam each year.

What is the CPE test like? The test has five


sections:

1. Reading - 4 parts, 90 minutes


o part 1, 3 texts with 18 gaps
o part 2, 4 related texts with 2 questions
each
o part 3, text with missing paragraphs
o part 4, text with multiple choice
questions
2. Composition - 2 tasks, 2 hours

3. Use of English - 90 minutes


part 1: text with 15 gaps
part 2: word formation
part 3: gapped sentences

4. Listening - 3 or 4 recordings, 40 minutes


part 1: 4 passages with multiple choice
questions
part 2: 1 long passage with gapped text

5. Interview - normally with another candidate,


15 minutes
More examples:
Cambridge Key English Test (KET), the
Cambridge Preliminary English Test
(PET)

The Cambridge First Certificate of


English (FCE)

The Cambridge Certificate in


Advanced English (CAE).

6. Aptitude Tests:
Before defining what a language aptitude test is,
it would be wiser to start first by defining what a
language aptitude is.
Language aptitude, as a hybrid concept part
linguistic and part psychological, refers to the
genuine ability one is endowed with to
learn a language. It is thought to be a
combination of several abilities:
 Phonological ability, i.e. the ability to detect

phonetic differences (e.g. of stress,


intonation, vowel quality) in a new language.

 Syntactic ability, i.e., the ability to


recognize the different grammatical functions
of words in sentences.

 Psychological ability, i.e. rote-learning


abilities and the ability to make inferences
and inductive learning.

The general aptitude tests are used to


objectively measure a candidate’s cognitive
abilities, attitudes, personality and
knowledge. They’re becoming increasingly
popular in the recruitment process and are
now used in industries ranging from business
and engineering to nursing and healthcare.
A language aptitude test tends to measure
a learner aptitude for language learning, be it
second or foreign, i.e. students' performance
in a language. Thus, it is used to identify
those learners who are most likely to
succeed. Language aptitude tests usually
consist of several different test items which
measure such abilities as:

 Sound-coding ability, i.e. the ability to


identify and remember new sounds in a new
language.

 Grammar-coding ability, i.e. the ability to


identify the grammatical functions of different
parts of sentences.

 Inductive-learning ability, i.e. the ability to


work out meanings without explanation in
the new language.

 Memorization, i.e. the ability to remember


and to recall words, patterns, rules in the
new language.
The general aptitude tests are used to
objectively measure a candidate’s cognitive
abilities, attitudes, personality and
knowledge. They’re becoming increasingly
popular in the recruitment process and are
now used in industries ranging from business
and engineering to nursing and healthcare.

Two well-known standardized language


aptitude tests have been used in the United
States, the Modern Language Aptitude
Test (Carroll and Sapon, 1958) and the
Primsleur Language Aptitude Battery
(Primsleur, 1966). Both tests are English
tests and require students to perform such
tasks as learning numbers, listening,
detecting spelling clues and grammatical
patterns and memorizing (Brown, 1994).
What do such tests measure?
- measure students' probable performance.
- are used as a reference forward but
can be distinguished from proficiency
tests.
- assess proficiency in language for
language use (e.g. will S experience
difficulty in identifying sounds or the
grammatical structure of a new
language?) while Proficiency tests
measure adequacy of control in L2 for
studying other things through the medium
of that language.

The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery

The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery


evolved from a series of research studies
undertaken by the author, Dr. Paul Pimsleur,
and his associates to ascertain whether
language learning ability could in fact be
measured. Of a number of intellectual and
motivational factors thought to contribute to
success in foreign language learning, four
proved to be significantly related to foreign
language learning: grade point average,
motivation, verbal ability, and auditory
ability. The Aptitude Battery has been
structured into six parts which assess
different aspects of these four factors:
to recognize them in
different contexts

Sound – Symbol Auditory ability (in


Part 6: Association: an association 24 conjunction with
of sounds withtheir written points Part 5)
symbols

Total 117
points

Part 3 – Vocabulary
PLAB Part 3 tests the vocabulary knowledge
of examinees.

DIRECTIONS: For each item, choose the


word that means the same as the stimulus
word in the item. For example, look at the
sample item below. The stimulus word is
prolonged. Then there are four choices. Find
the word among these four which has
approximately the same meaning as
prolonged.
SAMPLE
1) prolonged
a. prompt
b. decreased
c. difficult
d. extended

Part 4 – Language Analysis


PLAB Part 4 is an exercise to determine how
well examinees can figure out an artificial
language grammar.
DIRECTIONS:
The list below contains words from a
foreign language and the English
equivalents of these words.
jiban .......... boy, a boy
jojo ............ dog, a dog
jiban njojo za A boy likes a dog.
By referring to the above list, figure out how the
following statement should be expressed in this
language. Do this without writing on paper.
A dog likes a boy.

For example, in the first 15 items, examinees


might be taught that the
word ba means ‘cat’ and the word da means
‘see’. Then, they hear a series of short
sentences in the language and they have to
determine whether each sentence contains ‘cat’
or ‘see’.

1. po lan ba
A. cat
B. see

In the second 15 items, examinees might


be taught a third word, for example, pa
means ‘red’. Then, they hear a series of
short sentences in the language and they
have to determine whether each sentence
contains ‘cat’, ‘see’, or ‘red’.
2. ku pa gi
A. cat
B. see
C. red

PART 6 – SOUND-SYMBOL ASSOCIATION


PLAB Part 6 consists of nonsense words
based on English consonants and vowels
(and essentially English syllable structure).
The voice on the audio recording
pronounces one of the 4 words in each
response set, and the examinee simply
indicates which word was spoken.

For example, the voice on the recording


would pronounce [tarpled]. The examinees
would see the following four options in the
test booklet, and would have to choose the
correct answer, in this case, option B.
1.
A. trapled

B. tarpled

C. tarpdel

D. trapdel

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